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Sunday, July 3, 2011

Walnut Muffins w/ Coffee Glaze

This little beauty made my husband a very happy man!

When I saw started out making these, I wasn't really sure if it was a cupcake recipe or a muffin recipe. I adapted so many recipes to come up with this, that I had no idea what I was making. I was aiming for a 'muffin', but I didn't follow the usual 'wet bowl', 'dry bowl' method for muffins. I saw a recipe for muffins which called for the egg whites to be beaten to stiff peaks and folded in. It sounded good. This was a little more labor intensive, but well worth it.

The final result though was definitely muffin-like. It is dense (but not heavy), and has a nice crumb to it. And it has the unmistakable flavor of walnuts, which happen to be my husband's favorite! To intensify the nutty flavor, I decided to brown the butter. A good decision! And I made my husband even happier by pairing these muffins with a coffee glaze, and it worked just perfectly together!

My mother, who sampled one of these, said these were the best things to come out of my oven - ever! I don't know if that says a lot about the rest of my cooking, but it does say a lot about these muffins. I guess she's a coffee-walnut fanatic, too. And though I am not, I must still admit that these are G-O-O-D!

Keeping with my latest trend, this is a small batch recipe, and makes 6 muffins.

Method
1. In a heavy-based saucepan, melt the butter, stirring it often. The butter will froth a lot. After a little while, the frothing will stop, and the butter will start turning darker. Soon you will notice there are tiny brown specks in the butter. Once the butter reaches this point, take it off the heat. You should be able to smell the nutty aroma of the brown butter. It should not smell burnt.2. Stir in the sugar while the butter is still hot. Set aside to cool.3. In the meanwhile, in a medium bowl, stir the flour and baking powder together. Retain 6 walnut halves for garnish, and chop the remaining walnuts very fine. Most of the walnuts were almost powdered, but I left a few chunky bits because I knew that's what would be popular here. Stir the walnuts into the flour and set aside.4. Add the egg yolks and vanilla into the still warm butter-sugar mixture.5. Stir in the walnut, flour and baking powder mixture.6. In a clean bowl, beat the egg whites until stiff. Fold the egg whites into the walnut batter.7. The final batter will be quite thick, but soft and smooth.8. Divide the batter into a muffin tray (6 muffins), and bake at 180 for 15-20 minutes or until lightly golden and firm to the touch.9. Allow them to cool in the tray for 10 minutes and then turn out onto a rack to cool completely.10. Spread over the coffee glaze, and garnish with a walnut half.

Coffee GlazeIngredients2 tbsp milk1 tbsp instant coffee1 tsp butter, softened150g powdered sugarMethod1. Heat the milk and coffee together until the coffee has completely dissolved. Remove from heat.2. Add the butter, and stir until the butter has melted.3. Add the sugar and stir until you have a smooth glaze. If you want a thicker glaze, like the one I've used, you can add more sugar until you get the consistency you want.

Theses muffins are only mildly sweet, and need the sweetness of the glaze. The coffee and walnut flavors go really well together!

While the texture and consistency is perfect for a breakfast muffin, I know my family would gladly eat these for dessert!

Hmm! This little muffins will make me happy too! Coffee glaze? That's awesome!!! You make everything so easily Marsha. If I have the same baking skills, this will be my breakfast everyday with a cup of coffee. How perfect... Your husband is a lucky guy! ;-)

mmm these look good! the glaze wraps the muffin perfectly with the gentle folds making the entire presentation very unique! and you've pleased the critics: a husband, a mother and self, which in my case are the toughest critics ever! :)

I adoreee coffee walnut cake so am pretty sure I would absolutely love these little gems, I have never had the infamous thing that is browned butter however and am dying to try it, everyone seems to be besotted with the stuff! i like the fact this is a small batch, so so useful as its only me and my ma, so I might well give these beauties a shot thank you :)

Thank you so much! :) Browned butter really took some of my desserts to another level... you should give it a shot! :) And since starting this blog, I have realized that small batch for a small family is best :) Thank you for stopping by!

The muffins do sound very good. I like the coffee glaze topping. I am vey sure that your mom was just so excited at the intensity of the good flavor that she was trying to make a point of just how delicious these muffins were. Blessings, xo Catherine

I need to make these muffins, I love licking the bowl when I am preparing sweets and the idea of coffee flavour sounds soooooooooooooo good. Not sure they will make it into the oven though, nor that the glaze will make it on the muffins :P

Umm... those little beauties would have made me happy too! If I were your husband I would have been in heaven that day- and I say that day because I am assuming they were so good that those muffins didn't last longer than a day! LOL! Love the coffee glaze- perfection at its best

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About Me

I am a part-time work-from-home, full-time wife, mother & foodie... I am quite obsessive when it comes to food and all things food-related.
For me, there is nothing like the satisfaction of producing a perfect dish & having your loved ones devour it!